The Triumph of Truth 



OR- 



GienGe, Philosophy & Religion 



Extract from a Work on the Philosophy of Life, 






R. M. GOODMAN, 

Marietta, Ga . 



f 



Entered according to Act of Congress by R. M. Goodman, 1883, in the Office of 
the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C. 




/ 



ATLANTA, GEORGIA, 

W. T. Christopher & Brother, Printers 

69^ Whitehall Street, 

1883. 



*& 



» » 



PREFACE. 

The following problem made a lasting impression 
on the mind of the writer at an early age : 

"We are born, we laugh, we weep, 
We mourn, we droop, we die. 
41as! whv do we laugh, aud weep? 
Why do we droop and die? 
Who can solve this problem great? 
Alas! not I." 

Faith and the Imagination are antagonists un- 
equal to the march of appaling facts. In the arena 
oflntelect knowledge must be met with knowledge, or, 
Theology can never solve the problem. 

In vain did the writer of the book of Job essay to do this. 
Equally in vain the earnest Wolaston, the writers of the 
Bridgewater books, the learned Paley, and many others, at- 
tempted the solution of the problem, and with all the light 
derived from the study of Nature cast upon it, from the twi- 
light of Egyptian history to the present day, the problem 
remains unsolved. 

Beautiful is the story of Gautama. Heir-apparent to an 
empire, with youth, power, honor, affluence, a lovely wife 
and child — if the gratification of the senses could bring 
contentment, he should have been happy. But, of all his coun- 
trymen, having no ills of their own, he was most miserable. 
Contemplating the brevity of life, the depravity of animal 
indulgence, sickness, sorrow, pain and death, incident to 
mortality, his soul revolted at the apparently purposeless 
and irrational order of nature. Moved by pity, commiseration, 
benevolence, in vain they attempted to prevent his escape to 
the meditations of solitude, where he hoped to be enlighten- 
ed. In the dead hours of night he abandoned all — 

"Speaklow," he said, "and bring my horse, 
For now the hour is come when 1 must quit 
This golden prison, where my heart lives caged, 
To find the truth, which henceforth I will seek 
For all men's sake, until the truth be found." 

In a hermit's cell, living upon charity, for years his mind 
wrestled with the terrible enigma of Good and Evil. After 
deep study of Nature and its laws, he found enough of the 
Truth, in the discovery of the law of progressive develop- 
ment to satisfy the emotions and Intellect of the Soul. Then, 
he conceived, that by the subordination of animal selfishness 
to virtue — to love, charity, and w sdom, even here the soul 
could be brought in harmony with Nature and sure to 
reach Nirvana, the state of the blest.* 

The story is beautiful, and given to the world 500 years 

* See a work recently issued by the Standard Publishing House, N. Y., entitled 
' 'Errors Chains," a work of profound research in the history of Religion. 



M 

B. C, it is not wonderful that it gives inspiration to-day to 
nearly one-half of the human race. 

But, he did not solve the problem. That solution can 
only come from the discovery of the cause of the law of 
Progressive Development. If that cause is matter, then 
Nirvana means Rest — the extinction of life — the annihilation 
of the Soul. If that cause is mind, then it means, for the 
Soul, infinite life and immortal happiness. So the old prob- 
lem, of all ages, and all climes, viewed from the light of 
nature, remains as from the beginning. 

The issue is between Deism and Materialism- -an 
issue resulting solely from the absence of facts, on. 
both sides, which it is the object of these pages to pre- 
sent in their proper connection, that Science. Philoso- 
phy and Religion may be exhibited in harmony with 
each other and mutually illustrative of the solution of 
the above problem, and the Wisdom, the Power and 
the Goodness of God. 

In 1860, memorable in our country as the opening 
of the Great Rebellion, precipitated upon us in the face 
of the solemn warnings of Washington, by aggressions ot 
a faction at the North, enacting evil that good might 
come, and tho dominant faction in the South, maddened 
by these agressions, the writer employed himself in 
supervising the printing of a little work he had writ- 
ten, entitled "The Philosophy of Life." The page fol- 
lowing on "Inspiration," is copied from that work with- 
out alteration. It was truth then, it is truth now and 
will be truth forever. 

Recent advances in Materialism — in Atheism — have 
prompted the succeeding elaboration of the part of 
the original Essay on Science, Philosophy and Religion. 
With little aid from art and within a compass so narrow 
as this brief essay the light of human knowledge may not 
be concentrated upon the exposition of the great Truth so 
as to bring it clearly and indubitably to the mind. But if it 
has reached the point of discovery of the Astronomer, who, 
observing the purturbations of one of our solar planets, con- 
ceived, not only a cause, but the cause, and indicated the 
direction in the Heavens where that cause would be found 
and was found ; so, if these pages are only suggestive to 
some more fortunate mind, the end will be attained in the 
triumph ol Truth. 

If the work should be regarded by any one worthy of 
comment, the writer will please have the remarks 
mailed to mv address. 



INSPIRATION. 



All Truth, whether intuitive or demonstrative ; 
whether evolved from the native vigor of the mind, or, 
resulting from cultivated intellect ; whether laborious- 
ly discovered in exploring the principles of matter or 
mind, or found in the contemplation of the Attributes 
of God — is Inspiration and comes from God.* Galilleo 
— Columbus — Newton, were inspired with great truths. 
It was Inspiration which enabled Socrates to teach his 
friends a just conception of God — Plato to say that the 
Soul emanated from God — and Jesus to teach us, that 
God is our Father, a name dear to the human heart, ex- 
pressive at once of Origin, and Love unbounded as the 
Infinite nature of its source. 

It was by Inspiration that all truth has been discover- 
ed whether in Science, Philosophy, Morals or Religion. 
It is not meant that in any instance there has been mi 
raculous inspiration, contrary to, or above, the general 
laws of nature ; but simply, that God has so organized 
the human mind, as to enable it, in the progress of life, 
to discover new Truth. 

It is not material to the subject, to determine, 
whether the Source of Life acts thiough laws which 
constitute the forms of vital manifestation ; or wheth- 
er His Spirit is immediately present in all forms. 
Whether it is through the medium of laws controlling 
the organization of matter and mind, or from the im- 
mediate, informing presence of the Divine Mind, it is 
equally true that our just conceptions flow from God! 

It is the province of the human mind to grasp the 
phenomena of Nature ; to explore its history ; to 
take cognizance of its expression; and to turn upon it- 
self, and reflect upon its own laws, analyze its own pow- 
ers, and to strive to discover the meaning of this won- 
derful state of being. In all ages and climes, this Di 
vine Instinct of the human mind, however thwart- 
ed (§) has sought the Good, the Beautiful, the True ; 

*The genuine dictates of our natural faculties is the voice of God, no less than 
what He reveals from Heaven. — EeicVs Philosophy . 

% According to the German Philosophers, God is conceived as the absolute and 
original Being revealing himself variously in outward nature and in human in- 
telligence and freedom. It is not easy to see how pantheism, in this sense, differs 
from the Christian view of God, as expressed in the sublime language of St. Paul, 
"In whom we live and move and have our beini?." —Brcmde. 



[6] 

to discover its Source — comprehend its nature and to 
explore its destiny. Here and there, in the long ages, 
brilliant lights have shot athwart the mental sky, dis- 
persing the clouds of error and illustrating the persist- 
ence and energy of the Divine Instinct — an Instinct 
of exhaustless energy— one that can never cease to pros- 
ecute the discovery of TRUTH-never rest, while any- 
thing remains unknown, of Man, of Nature or of God.* 



THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IN SCIENCE. 



Scientists say that -'all the pnenomena of Nature 
can be traced to the laws of Matter." Science is found- 
ed upon accurately observed facts and manv such facts 
are required to establish an indubitable truth, and in 
view of this, some doubt may rest upon the judgment, 
as the postulate is broad, covering indeed, the highest 
generalization of physical science. 

It is not said, however, that all phenomena can be 
traced to matter, but, to the laws of matter, and, the 
postulate being thus evidently true, a knowledge of the 
laws of Nature becomes a subject of the profoundest 
interest to the human mind. 

Let us glance at these laws, at least at the general 
laws or forces of Nature. Probably with nebulous 
matter the counteracting tendences of the law of gravita- 
tion gave to the great globes of space their form and 
their movements, and evidently Heat, Light and Elec- 
tricity, were agencies in the evolution of vegetable 
li^e. But these forces, if not produced by matter could 
have had no effect without it, and though essential as 
media, let us see if they are not subordinate to a higher 
force. Let us contemplate that as a law or force 
clearly recognizable to the human mind. 

Science has traced the laws of Nature back to the 
"mysterious ether" pervading space; to the nebulous 
matter or "fire mist" of the astronomer; to the atoms of 

* "One great object." savs Hallam, 'that most of the Schoolmen had in view 
was to establish the principles of natural theology by abstract reasoning. * But 
all discovery of truth by means of such a controversy Avas rendered hopeless by 
two insurmountable obstacles: (the authority of Aristotle and the Church.) * Af- 
ter three or four huudred years the Scholastics had not untied a single knot, nor 
added one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy. How different is the 
state of genuine philosophy, the zeal for which will never wear out by length of 
time or change of fashion, because the inquirer, unrestrained by authority, is 
perpetually cheered by the discovery of truth in researches which the boundless 
riches of nature seem to render indefinitely progressive. — Middle Ages, p's. 5%V% 



[7] 

the chemist, or, the molecules of the physicist. It can 
go no farther — trace no farther matter or its forces. 

And yet, there is another Force paramount, and 
over-ruling all others and the atoms of matter in all 
their combinations. A Force physical science recogni- 
zes, as far as science treads, as preceding all observa- 
tion of the molecules, and forming in its control of 
other forces, the worlds of space. A Force which en- 
tered into inorganic matter and controlled the move- 
ments of the molecules in all their combinations — in- 
formed the chrystals — and clothed itself in living forms 
out of the Primitive Rocks. Name it as you will — "in- 
stinct of the molecules," a the law of selection," the 
principle of "attraction and repulsion," "reason," "in- 
tellect," "wisdom," all the same, as either expression 
exhibits the manifestation of the Intellectual Force in 
Nature, which, through matter, has clothed itself suc- 
cessively in the vegetable, the fish, the reptile, mam- 
malia, and lastly, in man, the highest and most com- 
plete concentration of the over-ruling Force ot Nature. 

"The fifty-five elementary substances into which 
the solid liquids and aeriform fluids of the earth have 
been reduced, observe, in their combinations, certain 
mathematical proportions. One volume of them unites 
with one, two, three, or more volumes, of another, any 
quantity being sure to be left over if such there should 
be. It is hence supposed that matter, composed of in 
finitely minute particles or atoms, each belonging to 
any one substance, can only, through the operation of 
some hidden law, associate with a certain number of 
the atoms of any other." 

"An influence," says Herschel, "is apparent not only 
in the matter of the earth, but the worlds of space, 
giving them all the same direction, a. family likeness, 
as they move in order around some great centre of the 
infinite universe." 

"Law," said Humboldt, "is the supreme rule of the 
universe, and that law is wisdom, is intellect, is reason, 
whether reviewed in the formation of Planetary sys- 
tems, or in the organization of the worm." — Kosmos. 

** "From the consideration of ourselves and what we infallibly find in our 
own constitutions our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and tri- 
dent truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful and most knowing Being 
which, whether any one wdl please to call God, matters not." — Locke. 

We cannot become too familiar with this Force, 
Go back to the molecules or the "mysterious ether" 
and you find that it it is a Force in but not of matter. 



[8] 

We trace matter to the immaterial, the inscrutable, and 
still find the Force an Active Power. Follow it from the 
molecules up to man and you find that it is instinct, 
thought, intellect, reason, reflection, memory, perpetu- 
ally impelled in search of better and higher expression. 
Scientists name it the "law of selection." It would be 
more definite to call it the selecting Force, or better 

Still, the DIRECTING, INFORMING And ADVANCING FORCE of 

Nature. 

"Atoms and molecules," say.s the chemist, "arrange 
themselves under the influence of chemical and chrystal- 
ic laws, into geometrical shapes and thus the solid rocks 
of the earth were formed." Elementary substances 
unite in definite proportions and form their physical 
combinations in obedience to the instinct pervading 
all nature, informing all matter. With matter organi- 
zed, that instinct becomes the conservator of life. It 
adapts the organized being to its environment, and sup- 
plies, subject to that environment, its wants. In all 
the orders of nature, vegetable and animal, every atom 
is moved by the same Force, the same instinct, seeking 
that whic'i is necessary to the organization. Follow it 
from the vegetable to the quadruped and from the lat- 
ter to man, and you see it moving the tender roots of 
the plant in search of food; moving the brute in search 
of its appropriate aliment and moving man in a like pur 
suit, the Force, in all instances, adapted to the organi- 
zation, subject to its environment. 

It appears, then, that to this Force, as it is imparted to 
matter, may be traced all the phenomena of nature. "As 
it is imparted to matter!" The Fauna and Flora of the 
Polar, Temperate and Torrid Zones differ. Montesquieu 
tells us truly that the laws, manners, habits and customs 
of man differ from climatic influences. If such is the 
effect of the Sun upon development, physical and men- 
tal, how natural that the emanations, the rays, the 
gleams of the mental Force of the Universe — the 
Source of Intellect — should produce diversified expres- 
sion, especially when we know that inert matter is its 
medium. 

That there is then an Intellectual Force pervading 
and over ruling all Nature, is abundantly sustained by 
all the facts of Science and the observations of common 
sense. 



[9] 
THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IN PHILOSOPHY. 



What is this Intellect ? It led the writer of the 
Book of Job to seek its great Original in a Supreme 
Ruler, not unlike the Intellect of the writer. It led, 
as vainly, all subsequent thought, to seek, not a Spirit, 
not a Force in Nature — but a Great Architect, who 
moulded the forms of matter as man moulds his wares, 
and looking at these forms, defective and conflicting in 
their environment, and expressive of Good and Evil, 
Theology was brought to the inconsistency that God 
is nowhere, and every-where. If we will reflect that He 
is nowhere, except as an Intellectual Force and that 
every-where, He is that Force, the problem is solved. 
If we will reflect that He is the informing and direct- 
ing Spirit of the Infinite Universe of matter, of whom 
we can never know more than our minds can compre- 
hend ; who is never present to us except as thus com- 
prehended, through everywhere, whether conceived or 
not. That though he is present with the ant, the sparrow, 
and they know it not ; yet you may know that He is 
present with them and with yourself. Then while we 
admire the exhibition of this great Force, in chemical 
and animal laws; while we repeat: 

"What though in solemn silence all, 
Move round this great terrestrial ball; 
In reason's ear th^.y all rejoice 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
Forever singing as they sh'ne 
The hand that made us is Divine." 

While thus impressed, we will be most deeply 
moved by the exhibition of the Force in man, in whom 
we find the highest earthly exposition of Divinity — In- 
tellect reflecting upon its Source — reflecting upon the 
Mental illumination of the universe. 

"That live" through all life, extends thro' all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

Aristotle said "there are two elements in Nature* 
Mind and Matter." Mind must have come from mind 
and the Intellect of man, though material its organs of 
expression, is a Force making its way through, and for- 
cing matter, to lend itself to the evolution of something 
higher — infinitely higher than the dark material it em- 
ploys — to the evolution of broader intellectual views, of 
greater love, higher life and better conditions of exist- 
ence. 

The physical organization is resolved into the mole- 



[10] 

cules or atoms of matter, of which it is composed and 
the instincts that impelled, having served their uses, 
perish with it. when the organization is dissolved. The 
Intellect — the desire for knowledge, the power to 
think, to reason, to reilect, with its delight in wisdom 
in goodness a/id the beautiful, actually hoping for and 
seeking some higher form of existence, belongs not to 
the organization, but is immortal and must return to 
the Source from whence it came. 

It is rational to accept the evidence of our senses, 
and with Des Carte Consciousness, as the foundation 
of knowledge. We find that to be the essential spirit 
of self, a quality of mind shared, according to the 
requirements of organization, by all the forms of anima- 
ted nature. The Mimosa shrinks from adverse contact; 
the animal shuns danger and man, not only conscious 
of existence and thought, distinctly asserts in the Eoo 
his identity, his individuality, whether wisely or un- 
wisely, depends upon the Intellectual Force received, 
orjas Solomon and Locke said, in other words "upon 
the understanding." 

Matter has had its evolution, its progress in the 
"history of the rocks,'' but not more distinctly, or cer- 
tainly, than Mind. With all the advances of organic 
life, mind has expanded, developed, until, in man, we 
find in exercise, not only the instincts of the lower ani- 
mals, but reason, judgment, reflection and the conscious- 
ness of these mental operations. 

But these are not all the mental qualities diffused 
through the mind of man, by the Intellectual Force, as 
reflection will readily suggest. Desire is the impelling 
principle of the Intellectual Force, and with instinct 
and intellect to inform, animates all nature. In lower 
life Desire is confined to the wants of the animal or- 
ganization. In man it is never satisfied with the grati- 
fication of these wants but is forever reaching out for 
something above them — something purer and better. 
Nor does the Inspiration stop here. Desire becomes ex- 
citing Emotion and urges the Intellect forward in search 
of "the way, the truth and the light." It spans, with 
Hope the chasm between time and the infinite, and 
with fitful, but not unmeaning flashes, portrays the 
pleasing imageries of the state of the blessed. 

This Mind, this Desire, this Hope, this Imagination 
is the Out-plow through Nature of the Intellectual 
Force. 



[11] 

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is and God the soul." 

"Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire 
this longing after immortality, if 'tis not "the divinity 
that stirs within us," 

"There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as 
we may." 

''In whom we live, and mDve, and have our beitag."--PcraL 

''God is a spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and in truth." 

The intellectual Force, in its highest earthly de- 
velopment, carries with it the emotions of the mind, 
and if the soul of man is immortal, it is because its ca- 
pacity and aspirations are higher than mere brutal or 
physical wants. The highest possible evidence of that 
immortality is the Fact that it is Hope and Expectation 
inspired by the Intei lectual Force. 

Whether as Budha or Brahma taught, the Intellec- 
tual Force in man will be re-absorbed; or as Sacra tes 
taught, u we will be hearth-fellows with the Gods," or as 
others have taught, u Angels of light," we know not 
yet. Science has demonstrated that the Intellectual 
Force in .Nature has impelled its own evolution — its de- 
velopment, from the molecules, through all the changes 
of matter, to man. But it is asked, u if the brain is the 
organ of expression here, how is the Intellectual Fdrce 
to express itself hereafter ? If you assert that matter is 
eternal, (though that is a postulate beyond your con- 
ception,) you will not deny the eternity of the Intel- 
lectual Force, which moves, animates, informs, and di- 
rects it, and you will consider, that this Force has found 
its expression in Nature, and will not deny that it must 
find that expression forever. You will also consider 
that its mode of expression has exhibited persistent ex 
pansion — enlargement, and will hardly deny, that after 
so many ages of growing illumination, it can find no 
higher medium than the matter with which we are ac- 
quainted. We possess a consciousness here of thought 
and emotion higher than necessary to this existence ; 
but we cannot have the consciousness of another, until 
we reach it. The worm is conscious of existence. In 
the chrysalis consciousness is suspended. In the but- 
terfly it is revived; but it is the consciousness of the but- 
terfly, not that of the worm. 

It is thus we know, from observation, reason and 
consciousness that a great Intellectual Power — Source 



[12] 

of all thought, all wisdom, all love, and all loveliness, 
reigns supreme in the universe of matter, and while 
almost assured of immortal happiness we rest in confi- 
dent hope, knowing ourselves safe 

"With one disposing Power, 

Or in the natal or the mortal hour." 

When, (regarding man from the stand-point ©f the 
materialist,) we pass through this nether most scene of 
animated nature; when we have tasted life's little 
round of animal pleasures; when we have borne physi- 
cal pain until the system groans beneath the burden of 
life ; when the pleasures of sense are dulled, and the 
pains of sense prevail ; when pleasurable emotions are 
stilled, or succeeded by those of mental suffering follow- 
ing the wreck of life : s endearments , when we see and 
feel this life, as it is, u a fleeting illusion," in which there 
is nothing permanent- nothing satisfying; when thus 
enlightened, we turn from it mournfully accepting the 
verdict of mankind: 

[ would not live alway, I ask not to stay 

Where storm after storm rises dark o'er my way." 



"Shadows we are, and shadows we pursue. 



"Like hubbies on the sea of matter borne, 
And to that sea return.' 1 

"Man was made to mourn." 



"Those whonvthe God's love die young." — Greek proverb. 

; The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
All that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave 

Await alike, the inevitable hour 

The paths oi glory lead bu„ to the grave." 

"Lite's a stage and men and women merely players." 

"We are such stuff as dreams are made of." 

"How wears', stale flat and unprofitable, 
Art all the uses of this life " 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 

To the last syllable of recorded time, 

And all our yesterday's have lighted fools 

The way to dusty death." 

But, when we find in this lite something worthy of 
the highest Reason; when we find developed in our own 
being, a Spirit, animated with the Desire and Instinct 
of immortality, which even now turns with loathing from 



[13] 

the gross pleasures of sense, and, fixed in the concep- 
tion ©f a nature infinite, looks forward to the Spirit 
Life, as its natural home — as its proper stage of being — 
as duly succeeding in the order of Nature, an inferior 
condition of progressive life ; when we are thus arous- 
ed to our highest earthly capacity, we find the solution 
of life's problem — the balm for all our woes — the frui- 
tion of all our hopes, and the inspiration of God's infinite 
Wisdom and Love. 

"Throw aside then all silliness of this kind, and think upon 
this, that atter the union of soul with body has been once dissolved 
by the former being settled in its own home place, what is left of 
the latter is of the earth and devoid of reason, nor is it a man. 
For we are a soul; a thing of life and immortal, pent up in a mortal 
prison." —Socrates. 

"When we are at home with the body we are absent from the 
Lord, but wheu we are absent from the body we are present with 
the Lord." — Paul. 

With Science and Philosophy in perfect harmony — 
mutually grounded upon the immutable facts of Na- 
ture, we read with heightened pleasure the intuition 
of the poet: 

"Let every living soul, 
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, 
In adoration join ; and ardent raise, 
One general song! To him ye vocal gales, 
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes; 
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms; 
Where o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine 
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. 
And ye whose bolder note is heard afar 
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to Heaven 
Th' impetuous song and say from whom you rage. 
His praise, ye brooks attune, ye trembling rills, 
And let me catch it as I muse along. 
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound ; 
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze; 
Along the vale; and thou majestic main, 
A secret world of wonders in thyself, 
Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice 
Or bids you roar or bids your roarings fall. 
Soft roll your incense, herbs and fruits, and flowers, 
In mingled clouds to Him whose Sun exhalts 
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. 
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him ; 
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart 
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. 
Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as earth asleep 
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams, 
Ye constellations, while your angels strike 
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. 
Great source of day ! best image here below 
Of thy Creator; ever pouring wide 
From world to world, the vital ocean round; 



[14] 

On nature write vvifh every beam his praise, 

The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world 

While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn, 

Bleat out afresh ye hills: ye mossy rocks, 

Retain the sound: the broad responsive low 

Ye valleys raise ; for the Great Shepherd Beigns; 

And his unsuffering Kingdom yet vjill come. 

Ye woodlands all awake: a boundless song 

Burst from the groves: and when the restless day, 

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep. 

Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela charm 

The listening shades and teach the night his praise. 

Ye Chief, for whom the whole Creation smiles, 

At once the head and heart, and tongue of all, 

Crown the great hymn: in swarming cities vast, 

Assembled men, to the deep organ join 

The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear 

At solemn pauses, through the swelling. base 

And, as each mingling liame increases each, 

In one united ardor rise to Heaven. 

Or, if you rather choose the rural shade, 

And find a fane in every secret grove, 

There let the Shepherd's flute, the Virgin's lay, 

The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre 

Still sing the God of seasons, as they roll. 

For me, when I forget the darling theme 

Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray 

Russets the plain, inspiring autumn gleams, 

Or winter rises in the blackening east; 

Be my tongue mure, my fancy paint no more, 

And dead to 105^, forget ray heart to beat. 

Should fate command me to the farthest verge 

Of the green earth to distant barbarous climes, 

Rivers unknown to song; where first the Sun 

Gilds Indian Mountains, or his setting beam, 

Flames on the Atlantic isles; 'tis naught to me 

Since God is ever present, ever felt, 

In the void waste as in the city full, 

And where he vital breathes, there must be joy. 

When even at last the solemn hour shall come 

And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, 

I cheerful will obey; then with new powers, 

Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go 

Where universal love not smiles around 

Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns 

From seeming ill still emlucing good 

And better thence again and better still 

In infinite progression. 



THE KELIGIOTJS INSTINCT. 



Religion is faith (or belief) in a Supreme Power, and an 
inspiration of the Intellectual Force, and, therefore, a mental 
expression of the mind of man. In the various degrees of 
intellectual development, as illustrated in modes of religion, 



[15] 

there is a principle of harmony common to all — an eternal 
foundation upon which they all rest — the impulse of the In- 
tellectual Force, which has persistently pointed man to 

" The Father of all in every age, 
In every clime adored, 
By saint, by savage, and by sage — 
Jehovah, Jove or Lord." 

The conception of the Great Spirit has varied in all ages 
as expressed through the mind of man, and yet in all ages 
and climes the expression declares complete identity in the 
great Truth underlying each conception. No one conception 
can be said to be derived from another save the derivation of 
the conception of Moses from the Egyptians and that of Ma- 
homet from Moses. All other conceptions of the Great Spirit 
were inspirations. Obliterate all conception of God from 
the mind of man and the inspiration will again come, again 
find voice, varied as before, by organism and environment. 

Before the Pyramids were built the Egyptians represented 
the Supreme Being as carrying on a constant conflict with 
the Spirit of Evil. 

Zoroaster said, "There is one God, and not many gods." 
"There are two forces in nature, opposed to each other, good 
and evil." 

" What God shall we adore with sacrifice? 
Him let us praise, the golden child that rose 
In the beginning, who was born the Lord — 
The one sole Lord of all that is — who made 
The earth and formed the sky, who giveth life, 
Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere, 
Whose hiding-place is immortality, whose shadow 
Death, who by His might is King of all 
The breathing, sleeping, waking world — 
Who is the breath of life of all that lives. 1 '' 

— Bible of the Hindus. 
11 Far in the deep infinitudes of space 
Upon a throne of silence, when chaos reigned, 
Was the Lord of the center of the universe." 

— Japanese Religion. 

The Chinese sacrifice to Shan-te, the Supreme Ruler, or 
God. To this Supreme Being all the highest forms of ado- 
ration have been offered for 2,300 years B. C. In His hands 
were the issues of life and death, and he whom He blessed 
was blessed, and he whom He cursed was cursed. The Tao- 
ists of the Chinese hold to a materialistic religion — that the 
soul is evolved from matter, gaining immortality by trans- 
mutation. The Budhists are metaphysical, denying the ex- 
istence of matter, and holding that the world of the senses is 
ideal. 

" I believe Thee to be best Being of all, the source of light for all 
the world. Every one shall choose Thee as the source of light. 



[16] 

Thee, () Mazda, most beneficent spirit. Thou ereated'st all good, 
true things by means of the power of Thy good mind." 

— Pdrsee Bible. 

The Druids of England, tracing their religion back to the 
days of Noah, had several words expressive of their concep- 
tion of the Supreme Being : " God," " Distributor," " Gov* 
ernor,""The Mysterious One," " The Eternal," "He that 
pervadeth all things," " The Author of existence," They 
taught that " God cannot be matter ; what is not matter is 
God." 

It will be observed that while all religions recognize, in 
the perpetual conflict of good and evil, the prevalence of the 
Great Spirit, yet, that none of them represent the human 
soul as the highest earthly expression of that spirit, or as 
am emanation from it. That was reserved for higher inspira- 
tion fully expressed in the beginning and closing words of 
the wise and tender prayer — 

"Our Father, who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name. Thy 
kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as 'tis done in heaven. * * * 
For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever." 

We have (as we could) followed the development and 
growth of the Intellectual Force, through inorganic and or- 
ganic nature, from the molecules to man, and find in him a 
capacity of mind awakened to reflect whence it came. The 
conception, as the medium of transmission, has varied, but 
the Force will continue to develop and enlarge its expression 
forever. 

It was right that the my thologists worshipped the elements ; 
they reflect the Intellectual Force. It was right that Zoro- 
aster worshipped the sun; it reflects the Intellectual Force. 
It is right that the Positivists worship high mental develop- 
ment, as great men exhibit in the highest degree, the Intel- 
lectual Force. Budha, musing in solitude, had the Force of 
Mental Illumination in bright effulgence cast upon him ; 
and it is above all things right that man should discover 
more fully the true object of worship through Jesus Christ, 
as in the highest degree was evolved in him the Intellectual 
Force, which, in its last analysis, is Wisdom and Love. 

In transmitting light, we look to the medium. As with 
other forces, the intellectual has its resisting medium. Iner- 
tia of the molecules — the appetites, passions and propensi- 
ties of animal nature, suppress, distort or pervert the trans- 
mission of the intellectual light. But the result is mani- 
festly, orderly progress, which it has gradually extended 
through all the changes and convulsions of matter until the 
primitive rocks were formed, when matter, earth, sea and 
air, were all combined, with the laws of nature, in the pro- 



[17] 

duction of organized life, when the Force exhibited itself as 
instinct, which, gradually expanding through all the orders 
of animated nature, finally unfolded its true essence in man, 
in whom it has since persistently widened and extended its 
diffusion until we are justified by reason in the hope that 
man will advance on earth to a much higher expression of 
Wisdom and Love. 

Rising above all animal depravity is the Intellectual Force. 
Though necessary in degree to vegetable and animal forms, 
these were not its ends, nor did the growth stop, with the 
coming of man, in the poor purpose of nourishing the body 
through a brief and objectless existence. It forced him to 
cultivate Art and to investigate Nature, to learn that Wis- 
dom, Intellect, Reason, prevails, and that he might be lifted 
up to a full sense of humanity, love for man in whom the 
light shines or may shine, and love for the Force that im- 
parts it. 

Reflect upon the mental capacity of man ; upon that " won- 
drous thinking thing, the human mind ;" a mental ego, that 
thinks, judges, reasons, excited by emotions of infini e antici- 
pations ; of the mental power of reflection — a faculty of the 
mind that reviews its own operations, and, as we are doing 
now, its own history, and sees — 

" Far as the heavens had birth 

The spirit trace its rising track" — 

Until it has grown, expanded, developed, evolved, in that 
greatest of all phenomena, the human mind. 

W T hen Newton observed the apple fall, it was not until after 
laborious thought, profound reflection, that he was led to 
the discovery of a great law of nature. But even that great 
and early force, operating in matter, is controlled by another 
equally as well defined, equally pervading in matter — "attrac* 
tion and repulsion." There was, before the law of gravita- 
tion, a force that gave to the unseen ether filling all space, 
to the fire-mist, to the atoms and molecules, " attraction and 
repulsion." In other words there was, in the beginning, 
the Intellectual Force. 

Now accept the law of development, of evolution. You 
will not think of rejecting its grandest feature, its most won- 
derful efflorescence, the fruit by which, alone, all the works 
of nature were made conceivable. You will consider, indeed, 
above all phenomena, the evolution of mind, of intellect. 
Begin, if you choose, with the laws of attraction and repul- 
sion, formative instincts of the molecules, and follow these 
laws through all their instinctive exhibitions in vegetable 
and animal life until you find them so wonderfully unfolded 



[18] 

in man. You then find that these instincts have developed 
faculties suited to the advanced organization. You witness 
the development of judgment, reason, reflection, in obedience 
still to the impulsive instinct. You follow man through all 
stages of his development, from savage to pastoral, pastoral 
to agricultural and commercial, from ignorance to science, 
art and civilization, and development (evolution) becomes the 
evident law of mental as of phyiscal progress. 

Accept the facts of physical science, but let us observe the 
highest natural law, the highest force of nature, the impelling 
and informing Force of Intellect, as it is to this we are in- 
debted for all that is conceived in matter, all that is estimable 
in knowledge, all that is elevating in morals, all that is aspir- 
ing in mind. 

The Intellectual Force is just as natural as the law of 
gravitation, and, like the light of the sun, diffuses itself 
through all matter. The reception of the Force depends upon 
the organism and its environment. All the forces of nature 
operate through resisting mediums, and all that we call evil 
in life (physical and moral) results from this fact. Just as 
you see the flora of nature every- where struggling with its 
environment for existence; as you see its fauna every-where 
struggling to maintain life ; as you see man, through all the 
centuries, struggling to better his condition ; just so you see 
the Intellectual Force within him, how it has impelled, de- 
veloped and expanded until it has reached, through a dark 
medium, its present evolution. 

Distinguish the two natures — Matter and Mind — and, first, 

reflect that organized matter subsists by feeding upon itself. 

" All forms that perish other forms supply, 
By turns we catch the vital breath and die." 

The rocks decay and accumulate the elements upon which 
vegetation subsists > and that, in turn, becomes the food of 
animal life, which, in its turn, largely subsists upon itself. 
It is conjectured that man in the early stages of his history 
was as certainly under the dominion of animal instinct as 
the brute, and he is yet gramnivorous, carnivorous, omniv- 
orous, with all the organic desires distinguishing lower life. 

This is blind matter, with just enough of the Intellectual 

Force to preserve animal organization. The food of the 

mind (of the soul), on the other hand, is knowledge, truth ; 

the soul growing by what it feeds on, and every point gained 

exciting more strongly the love of the beautiful, the true, and 

the good, finding its satisfaction only in a table spread vast 

as eternity. 

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the 
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal 
life." 



[19] 

The poet says the angels exhibited Newton to curious au- 
diences " as we show an ape." Newton compared himself to 
a little child gathering pebbles on the beach of an infinite 
ocean. 

Know thyself! and say if there is nothing within you but 
the animal. Mr. Spencc r is exhibiting the close resemblance 
of the anatomy of man and the dog. He can go farther, and 
trace that resemblance from man to the lowest form of the 
vertebrata. And observation would lead .him, still farther, 
to find it exhibited in the features of man ; and farther still, 
to find man animated by every instinct, in varied degree, as 
if the progenitors of all, with Romulus and Remus, had been 
suckled by a wolf — voracious, fierce, cruel, secretive, decep- 
tive, over-reaching, hypocritical, every animal instinct exag- 
gerated and sometimes refined by superior sagacity, culmin- 
ating in those twin -monsters of brutality, the love of power 
and the love of gold. 

" Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men, 
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 
Shoughs, water-rugs, and denii wolves are 'cleped 
All by the name of dogs; the valued file 
Distinguishes the swift, the slow the subtle, 
The housekeeper the hunter — every one 
According to the gift which bounteous nature 
Hath in him closed." 

Is this all of man? Have you no consciousness of any- 
thing higher and better in your nature? True, when one is 
successful in reaching the highest ambition of the animal in- 
stincts his ego, his " I myself," becomes dreadfully distended ; 
but it does (and ought to) meet the fate of the fabled Frog. 

Popular clamor, in each generation, in every nation, city 
and hamlet, makes its ephemeral great men. Briefly, the 
great men and the fools pass away together and are forgotten. 
But when the Intellectual Force fully develops a great 
man — when Socrates braves death for truth, or Jesus the 
crucifixion, or Bruno the stake, or Gallileo persecution — a 
great mind is produced whose light is never ext'nguished. 

The history of mind, in man, is the persistent effort of the 
Intellectual Force to subdue animal instinct and to subor- 
dinate the laws of matter, organic and inorganic, to rational 
uses. This has been the burthen of philosophy and religion 
as it is of science. This was the great intellectual conflict 
of the Greeks; this the animation of the Roman moralists; 
this that brought to human conception the mariner's com- 
pass, the printing press, the power to subdue to human 
uses the solar rays and the forked lightning ; and this it was 
2 



[20] 

that, in the midst of Egyptian darkness, surrounded by the 
profound mental depravity of* his people, that inspired Mo- 
ses with the conception of higher intelligence, of a higher 
power than matter, of a wisdom greater than man's mere bru- 
tal instincts. It was the conception of Moses, and it detracts 
not from its truth that the Power, as conceived, was not un- 
like Moses himself. 

"Stick not in the bark." That was the error of Paine, 
the French schooL, Gibbon and others. Rejecting the garb, 
they discarded the spirit. Tearing down a shelter and turn- 
ing the family out of doors, exposed to the pel tings of the 
pitiless storm, before erecting a new one. They did not re- 
flect that the Intellectual Force had evolved through organ- 
ized matter until it reached its development in man, where 
it is still encompassed with its resisting medium, physical 
nature and its instincts. They did not reflect that it came to 
us, not only through this dark medium, but to communicate 
itself to the general mind, in all ages, it passed through many 
and changeable languages, through many transcriptions, find- 
ing the latter medium as dark and distorting as the first. 

FORMULATED RELIGION. 

In all the ages of man the spirit of Religion has assumed 
form, the modes of worship varying with the conception of 
the Intellectual Force. In all of them the object worshiped 
has grown in illumination, and yet all are defective, all too 
much animated by the animal instincts. Still, they are con- 
servative of truth, of the spirit of Nature, of the voice of 
God, though, while holding fast to the progress of the past, 
they always become a bar, an obstacle, to the advancement of 
the Intellectual Force, but to which they all find they must, 
sooner or later, subordinate themselves or perish. 

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
The eternal yars of God are hers; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies amid its worshipers." 

Corrupt generally, cruel often, has formulated religion 
been in its domination of man. It sentenced Socrates to 
death for uttering truth; it crucified Jesus Christ; it burnt 
Bruno at the stake, and many other martyrs, and has been 
the moving cause of most of the wars and social desolations 
of modern times. But the truths of Socrates and Bruno 
continue to enlighten the mind of man, and the words of 
Jesus live. " Whited sepulchre, full of corruption and dead 
men's bones." Form may bar itself against the Intellectual 
Force diffused and diffusing through nature; but even its 



[21] 

ow" passions, mingled with higher aims, serve the evolution 
of the Intellectual Force, as when Gallileo broke a pane of 
glass and let the light pour in, and Luther unlocked the door 
and let the light pour out. 

When the light forced its way out for general diffusion, 
zealots encompassed " in dead men's bones" lit their rush- 
lights from the flame, and each, waving them aloft, exclaimed, 
"Behold the true light!" and, instead of one form of relig- 
ion we have a dozen, involved, at first, in fierce and bloody- 
strife ; throughout, in bitter contention ; all, in obedience to 
animal instinct — the love of power and the love of gold. 

Abolish not the form, but drive out or subordinate the 
brute. As Jesus attempted to cleanse the Jewish temple, 
go into Turkish mosque, Christian church or Indian temple 
and cleanse them of all brutality, of all animal propensity, 
and subordinate them to advancing intelligence and the pure 
meditations of the soul. Fancy not that He can be cribbed, 
confined, by work of human hands, but know that He is with 
you at all times and places, as your minds are framed for the 
reception of His spirit, which fills, directs, informs, the 
boundless universe of nature. This is His temple, the solar 
and the astral worlds, farther than eye can see or glass can 
reach, and this, in every accessible department and in all its 
relations, is the proper study of mankind, as it is the only 
possible medium of inspiration. It is well to worship the 
Great Source of Intellect ; to seek His wisdom and love, one 
day in the week; but far better, while living a life of useful- 
ness, as far as in you lies, to live daily in the consciousness 
of His informing presence. Banish the miraculous and su- 
pernatural with all authority devoid of useful and evident 
truth, relying no more upon " dead men's bones " than to 
extract from them evidence of the gradual diffusion and de^ 
velopment in nature of the Spirit of God. Let Philosophy 
teach by historical example, from the origin of man to his 
present moral and intellectual estate, from his beginning in 
barbarism to his present outgrowth of civilization, the devel- 
opment and diffusion of that Spirit. Trace Language, from 
signs and gestures, to its present capacity of conveying, from 
mind to mind, conceptions of the beautiful and sublime,. 
The Arts, from their origin in caves and tents and rude im- 
plements, to all the comtorts, elegancies, utilities, conven- 
iences and delights they now afford. Let Science teach the 
diffusion of the Intellectual Force through matter, inorganic 
and then organic, until the table was spread for man, and 
then follow man through his conflicis with adverse nature, 



[22] 

through habits, manners, customs, government anfl religion, 
to find the spirit exhibited in its present earthly Force, and 
we will readily conceive its wonderful excellence, its pro- 
gressive diffusion and inevitable tendency. Let the scien- 
tist, the truth-seeking " skeptic," the follower of JBudha, 
Brahma, Moses and Jesus Christ all meet together in joyful 
communion, every animal instinct and propensity subdued, 
" to drink of the water freely given " and be " born again ;" 
to send up united invocation for increase of the Intellectual 
Force; for the Divine Afflatus; for the inspiration of the 
Comiorter and the Holy Ghost; for the coming more and 
more of His kingdom, the dominion of Wisdom and Love, 
and then "through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, 
the pealing anthem," in symphony with the intellect and 
emotions of the soul, will swell, indeed, " the note of praise;" 
for Music, "heavenly maid," is the Spirit of Harmony, 
mourning the adversities of life and exulting in its joys. 

Let the Church reform its auxiliary schools. " Train up 
the child in the way it should go," but bandage not its intel- 
lect with effete dogmas, as "the way it should go" is not 
according to arbitrary formulas constructed with a view to 
ecclesiastical power ; but to the free and untramelled exercise 
of intellectual energy. The grandest thoughts of man have 
not found expression, yet, in language. The brightest efful~ 
gence of the Intellectual Force has not, yet, found expression 
through matter. Hence we are taught to pray, "Thy king- 
dom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." 
Teach the child this end of human mental desire, and in- 
struct him that the laws of nature, properly understood, lead 
to it, and the intellectual progress of the race will be won- 
derfully accelerated.* 

As the light came to Budha, and to Socrates, so it came to 
Moses. Contemplating the miseries of mankind under the 
dominion of animal instinct, depravity became apparent as 
the status of the race. Reflection taught him that man was 
capable of higher aims and a nobler life under the dominion 
of Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom, and from these qualities as 
they operated in his own mind he inferred an Intellectual 
Source as their origin. It matters not how he sought to im- 
press this Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom, upon an ignorant 
people, buried mentally beneath the weight of the animal 
instincts. We are only concerned with the fact of his in- 
spiration — the conception of the natural depravity of man — 

* See "Combe on the Constitution of Man." 



[23] 

his higher capabilities, and an overruling Intellectual Power 
in Nature. Everything else ascribed to him may be dis- 
carded, except one other inspiration, great as all these — an 
inspiration which has come in no other way in nature to man — 
which founded, at once and forever, upon the highest possible 
human conception of the Intellect, Wisdom and Love that 
overrules the universe, the moral law of man. 

The search is vain, in the absence of a higher intellectual 
power in nature than man, to find a foundation for moral 
law. All effort in this direction hasended"in theconsent of 
the governed" — "conventionalism — "there is nothing either 
right or wrong, but thinking makes it so." Science has 
done as yet no better — found nothing higher than expedi- 
ency to which to refer the great issues of right and wrong, 
and under its now familiar phrase, "the survival of the fit- 
est," right and wrong, in nature become matters of indiffer- 
ence where expediency and success, whether of individuals or 
races, are the highest sanctions of law. 

Moral law for man, it is true, cannot transcend his intelli- 
gence; but, in the highest human intelligence, it finds for 
him its foundation, and, the knowledge that that intelligence 
is progressive in development, and, that it could come from 
no other than an infinitely intelligent source, moral law — 
the distinction of good and evil, of right and wrong, what- 
ever you or I may think, finds its foundation in the over- 
ruling force of nature. 

Crude, coarse, erroneous, much that is ascribed to Moses 
appears to the skeptic ; but the great facts with which he 
was inspired will not be denied ; the depravity of man ; his 
-capacity for progressive mental development ; the recognition 
of intellect, reason, wisdom, in himself, in nature, and in the 
source from whence they must have proceeded ; and in his 
final conception of moral law, based upon the relation of 
the human inlellect to that source. 

It was a very simple, natural and rational operation of 
the human mind that gave inspiration to Budha, Zoroaster 
and to Moses. A well developed mind cannot avoid observ- 
ing among mankind, and reflecting upon, exhibitions of pleas- 
ure and pain ; enjoyment and delight ; sickness, sorrow, suf- 
fering and death ; in a word upon good and evil, and a 
rational being cannot avoid referring these to a cause, and 
the varied conception of that cause has fnrnished the founda- 
tion of all the religions of the earth. Moses and others, con- 
ceived the cause of evil to be a malignant spirit, perpetually 



[24] 

involving the economy of nature in conflict with the cause 
of the good. 

However defective the conception, Budhaand Moses found 
what they sought, a basis for moral law, without which the 
mind of man is lost in the wilderness of brutality. 

The conception of this law is the highest excellence of the 
human intellect as it is the expressed desire of the 
Intellectual Force, impelling man to higher knowledge of 
the true relations of intellect with intellect, and the objects 
of the law are wisdom, and then, righteousness, and then, 
beneficence, and aiding to these, are patience, hope and 
charity, all ending in a mind disenthralled of animal domins 
ion, in a spirit purified. 

Let us then base at once and forever, moral obligation, upon 
the paramount and eternal force 'of nature. What consti- 
tutes the "fitest," who survive? Looking at the animal races 
what does the intellectual force determine as the fitest? At 
first, strongly armed with weapons of destruction, the roar 
of the Carnivora filled the gentler animals upon which they 
fed with terror. Which has survived ? Vast flocks and 
herds of useful and inoffensive animals, feed upon the hills 
and valleys now, unawed by their terrible enemies. The 
eagle, fierce, strong and swift, scarce ventures from hij» inac- 
cessible eyrie to scare the flocks feeding upon the grain of 
the fields. Follow the development of the law of selec ion 
until "the table was spread for man." Which of all his 
races do you find the "fitest?" Do you find them where 
the animal mostly predominates or the intellectual ? Do 
you not find in the history — the growth of human civiliza- 
tion — that the "fitest" have been those in whom is most 
fully developed the Intellectual Force, and among these do 
you not see that this force has evolved the sense of right 
and wrong, of law, order and benevolence ? Then, these are 
elements of the Intellectual Force. You may see them in 
the beams of the sun, in the murmuring streams, in the flora 
that decks the earth, in the songs of the birds, in the affec- 
tion and providence of animals, in the glee of the harvest, 
and best of all, in the sentiment of humanity — spreading 
with the diffusion of the force — alleviating suffering — and in 
the progress of science and art, lessening the evils and ad- 
vancing the good of life. 

The advancing development of the Intellectual Force is 
gradual but sure, and it carries along with it, now, the sense 
of right and wrong, of love for all partaking of the force r 
of humanity, benevolence and moral purity. 



[25] 

" Daily perform thine own appointed work ■ 
Unweariedly ; and to obtain a friend — 
A sure companion to the fumre wo* Id — 
Co : leet a store of virtue like the ants. 
Who gather up their treasures into heaps ; 
For neither father, mother, wife nor son, 
Nor kinsman will remain besido thee then; 
When thou art passing; to that other home, 
Thy virtue will thy only comrade be. 

Single is every living creature born, 

Single he passes to another world ; 

Single he eats the fruit of evil deeds, 

Single the fruit of good ; and when he leaves 

His body, like a log, or heap of clay 

Upon the ground, his kins > en walk away. 

Virtue alone stays by him at the tomb, 

And bears him through the dreary, trackless gloom." 

— Moral Precepts of the Hindoos. 

THE ULTIMATE TEUTH IN KELFGIOK 

A THING " OF BEAUTY AND A JOY FOREVER," 

The Intellectual Force brought the Egyptian from caves 
and tents and barbarism, and gave him Architecture, Agri- 
culture, and many useful arts. It took the Hebrew from 
servile bondage, and, giving to Moses a vaguerecognition of it- 
self, it gave them their religion, moral and civil law. It im- 
pelled the Greek and Roman to preserve all that had been 
gained and to diffuse and extend, willing or unwilling, the 
"light of life." Gathering up, through the rise and fall of 
empires, the intellectual rays, it poured them all into the 
mind of modern ages, evolving art, science, philosophy, re- 
ligion, moral and civil law.* Do you not recognize the 
Overruling Intellectual Force of Nature ? Surely, man was 
impelled in all this. Surely, in all this there was a Power 
moving him, grea er than h,is will, greater than all the em- 
pires of man ; a Power subordinating the animal instincts of 
the race to the gradual development and diffusion of reason, 
of knowledge, of humanity and religion. 

The Intellectual Force lives to-day, in great full ess, in 
the hearts of many, and should in its brightest earthly 
purity animate the minds of all mankind, as it is pre-eminent 
in wisdom, infinite in capacity, perfect in purity, ennobling 
in its desires, biissful in its hopes, tender in its judgment, 
merciful and loving in its humanity — emotions that could 
proceed only from an Intellectual Source of Infinite Perfec- 
tion. 

As the Force is imparted by its Source in varied degree to 

* See M History of Civilization." 



[26] 

all nature, so, in more or less fullness, it is imparted in all 
ages and climes to man. It came to Moses, but with far 
more brilliant illumination to Jesus Christ. It was his mis- 
sion to exhibit, as far as the human mind can yet realize, the 
dominion of the animal instincts in man, his capacity for 
higher mental development, and a just conception of the 
nature of the Intellectual Force of which the soul of man 
is an emanation. 

Full charged with great and glorious truths, Jesus was 
met, at the outset, by formulated prejudice, asking, "Can 
anything good come out of Nazareth ?" and then by ignor- 
ance, immersed in the vices, passions and propensities of 
brutality through which he sought to impart the love of the 
Beautiful, the True, the Good ; but loving darkness better 
than light, they crucified him. 

John tells us, " In the beginning was Wisdom, (Gibbon's 
rendering,) and Wisdom was with God, and Wisdom was 
God. In it was life, and the life was the light ot men. It 
was in the world, and the world was made by it, and the 
world knew it not. It came unto its own and its own re^ 
ceived it not ; but as many as received it, to them it gave 
power to become the sons of God" 

Now let science re- write these great truths without change 
of the sublime thoughts the words convey. 

In the beginning was the Intellectual Force, and the In- 
tellectual Force was with God, and the Intellectual Force 
was God. It was life, and the life w T as the light of men. 
It was in the world, and the world was made by it, and the 
world knew it not. It came unto its own and its own re- 
ceived it not; but as many as received it, to them it gave 
power to become the sons of God. 

Now let Philosophy add its attestation : " The soul of man 
is an emanation of the Divine Mind," and we have Science, 
Philosophy and Religion, consenting and exulting in the 
knowledge of the most sublime truth conceivable to man. 

The credentials of Jesus Christ, as a bearer of Wisdom, 
of Intellectual Light, to man, need no appeal to the miracu- 
lous or the supernatural for support. What, then, was the new 
light — the higher Wisdom — so saving, so ennobling, so bright, 
and yet so imperceptible to others, of which he was the 
bearer ? 

His mission was to " bring glad tidings of great joy, with 
peace on earth and good will among men;" to exhibit to man 
his true nature ; to teach him to know himself — that the ani* 
mal instincts given for physical uses (and mortal as the 



[27] 

body) are qualities solely of inferior and transitory nature. 
This was the deplored darkness he came to bring to the rec- 
ognition of man's Intellect For this he denounced the hy- 
procrisy of the Priesthood, the subordination of the Temple 
to animal uses, contrasted the Levite and Samaritan, Dives 
and Lazarus, and for this that he said "it is easier for a 
camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
to enter the kingdom of heaven." 

And yet he brought, more fully, the light, that man is ca- 
pable of something vastly higher and better than this ; that 
he possesses capacity for the reception of a mental Power, if 
he chooses to receive it, to subordinate all animal instincts 
to rational uses; to subordinate all animal desire to the de- 
velopment of Intellectual desire; the passing depravity of 
the brute to knowledge, love and immortality. 

He came to teach that this capacity (this Mental Power) 
is an inheritance to all who will receive it, from the Perva- 
ding Wisdom, the Divine Spirit of the universe, and is an 
emanation of that Spirit — the light of the Intellectual Force. 
This light he imparted to all who would receive it, and 
mourned that so many were debarred by animal depravity 
from being "gathered together" under its illumination. 

He came to exhibit the almost universal depravity of man 
under the dominion of animal instinct, and denounced, not 
the instincts themselves; they are natural and necessary to 
physical health and happiness. It was their domination of 
man, in whatever feature, that he denounced, while he taught 
that each possessed capacity, in one degree or other, for the 
dominant Soirit of God — Intellectual desire for the love of 

i 

the Beautiful, the True and the Good — and that when this 
desire — this love, subordinates animal instinct and dominates 
the mind, "the man is born again" and becomes with himself 
" a Son of God." 

Bunyan painted the picture with the pencil of faith. Pil- 
grim, after his passage through trial, suffering and self-de^ 
nial, appears belbre the cross, the burden of his animal na- 
ture falling from him, and in his happy deliverance start- 
ing on his way rejoicing : 

"Let cares ike a wild deluge come, 

And storms of sorrow fall ; 
So I but safely reach my home, 

My God, my Heaven, my all." 

Upon this desire — this love of the Beautiful, the True and 
the Good — this expressed Will of God — of the Intellectual 
Force of Nature, he perfected the moral law of man. "Love 



[28] 

thy God with all thy soul and all thy strength, and thy 
neighbor as thyself." Thus it was proclaimed that the hu- 
man soul is of essence and nature identical with the wisdom 
from whence it co.nes. That it is not only a thinking, 
knowing, reasoning and emotional essence, but that to per* 
feet itself, to be true to itself, it mu<*t grow in moral purity, 
in love for its Source and love for all partaking of that 
Source. 

It was for the increase of this desire, this love of the 
Beautiful, the True and the Good, that Jesus prayed, — 
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as 'tis done 
in Heaven. " It was this Desire, this Will, this Intellectual 
Force, to which he patiently submitted his mortal nature. 
"Nevertheless Thy will, not mine be done;" and it was this De- 
sire, this Will, this Force, this moving animating Spirit of God, 
this Supreme Wisdom, embracing, unrestricted, all of its 
own, that made forgiveness of injuries unlimited, and said 
"lov one another." "Suffer little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of 
Heaven." "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see 
God," — and finally, to the thief upon the cross, "this night 
thy soul will be with me in Paradise." 

Have we not reached then "the age of Reason, and, found- 
ed upon the immutable truths of nature, may not the thous- 
ands of millions of passing generations of men, "shout 
Hozanna to God in the highest?" May they not sing with 
soul-stirring melody — 

"Peace breathes the comforter, in God's name saying, 
Earth hath no sorrow, Heaven cannot heal." 

"There is a land that is fairer than clay, 

And now we can see it afar ; 
For the Father waits over the way, 

To prepare us a dwelling place there." 

GOOD AND EVIL. 

The finite cannot comprehend the infinite, and the eternity 
of nature is beyond our power of conception ; but, far as sci- 
ence can trace the divisibility of matter, there is to us the be- 
ginning of facts. 

In the beginning, then, were the molecules, or atoms of 
matter and inertia. These would have remained forever at 
rest, without some power, some influence, impelling them 
to action. That power, that influence, can only be found 
revealed in the energy of intellect acting upon the inertia of 
matter. 



[29] 

As the sun diffuses heat through matter, the Impelling 
Power gave to the atoms the principle of selection — the first 
manifestation in nature of the Intellectual Force. So that 
in the beginning there was imparted to matter an over- 
ruling, directing, controlling Influence, which displayed its 
power in the formation of the globes of space, the waters, 
the air, the earth and all organic life; directing the exact 
proportion of gases to form bodies ; directing the roots of 
plan s in search of food to complete their organization and 
the animal in a like pursuit, to perfect its organization. As 
organized life advanced the Influence gradually expanded and 
developed into desire, and desire into sensation, and sensa- 
tion into thought, and these, according to organization and 
environment, are the outflows of the Intellectual Force, im- 
pelling and directing all things. To man it gives the ever* 
impelling principle of life, the desire to better his condition : 

" O happiness ! our being's end and aim ! 
Good, pleasure', ease, content, whate'er thy name; 
That something still, which prompts the eternal sigh; 
For which we bear to live or dare to die." 

If you wouH understand the works of nature, bear in 
mind that force implies resistance, and then that the Impel- 
ling and Informing Force find-' its resistance in the inertia of 
matter. Then you may conceive that the Intellectual Force 
is, to us, a thing of growth, a thing of purpose, persistently 
advancing and extending, through the vast period of the 
earth's duration, from combination to organization ; through 
death to life; compelling the expression, through inert mat- 
ter, of Wisdom, of Benevolence, of Joy, with the exulting 
Hope of bringing all things in subjection to itself. You 
will then, also, readily conceive that resistance to this Force, 
this Power and its purpose embraces all that we regard as 
evil in nature. 

It is evident then that the Intellectual Force, first recog- 
nized by the mind of man in the principle of selection, is 
the moving, animating, informing, overruling Force of Na- 
ture. Toward the " Mysterious Origin " we can only so far 
safely and securely tread. The beginning, however, of the 
earth, science has largely brought within the conception of 
the human mind. Whether formed from nebulous matter 
or projected from the sun (by the electrical or attractive 
forces), its beginning was a state of fusion — of liquid fire. 
When time, of indefinite duration, had cooled its surface, the 
primitive rocks were formed, and upon them appeared the 
first forms of life and the first exhibition of instinct. Let us 



[30] 

take the revelations of the Stone Book, and follow their de- 
velopment: 

" A partially consolidated plane* - , tempested by frequent earth- 
quakes of such terrible potency, that those of the historic ages 
would be but mere ripples of the earth's surface in comparison, 
could be no proper home for a creature so constituted as man. The 
fish or reptile — animals of a limited range of instinct, exceedingly te- 
nacious of life in most of their varieties, oviparous, prolific, and 
wh->se young, immediately on their escape from the egg, can provide 
for themselve , might enjoy existence in such circumst ■* ces, to the 
full extent of their narrow capacities; and when death fell upon 
them — though their remains, scattered over wide areas, continue to 
exhibit that distortion of posture incident to violent dissolution, 
which seems to speak of terror a r -d suffering — we may safe y con- 
clude that there was but little real suffering in the case. They ere 
happy up to a certain point, and unconscious forever after. Fishes 
and reptiles were the proper inhabitants of our planet during the 
a-es o the earth-tempests; and when, under the operation of the 
chemical laws, these had become less frequent and terrible, the 
higher mammals were int'oduced. That prolonged ages of these 
tempests id exist, and that they gradually settled down, until the 
state of things became at length comparatively fixed and stable, few 
geologists will be disposed to deny. The evidence which supports 
this special theory of the development of our planet in its capabili- 
ties as a sc j ne of organized and sentient being, seems palpable at 
every step. Look first at these Grauwacke rocks; and, after ma ,- k- 
ing how in one place the strata have been upturned on their edges 
for miles together, and how in another the Plutonic rock has risen 
molten from below, pass on to the Old Red Sandstone, and examine 
its significant platforms of violent death — its faults, displacements, 
and dislocations; see, next, in the Coal Measures, those evidences of 
sinking and e^er-sinking strata, for th uisands of feet togetlv r ; mark 
in the Oolite those vast overlying masses of trap, stretching athwart 
the landscape, far as the eye can reach ; observe c refully how the 
signs of convulsion and catastrophe gradually lessen as we descend to 
the times of the Tertiary, though even in these ages of the inam- 
miferous quadruped, the earth must have had its oft-recurring ague 
fits of frightful intensity; and then, on closing the survey, consider 
how exceedingly partial and unfrequent these earth-tempests have 
become in the recent periods. Yes, we find every-where marks of at 
once progression and identity." — Hugh Miller. 

Identity, in the principles of formation, as the structure 
of the nerve medium, in all the leading races of animals, is 
upon the same model ; and progress, in the development of 
this medium, from the lowest form of the vertebrate animals 
up to man. Progress also in the adaptations of external na- 
ture to organized beings. During the Primitive period, the 
waters, the solid earth and the air were formed, and for ages 
the latter w*«sso charged with carbonic acid £as that no land 
animal could breathe it and live. Fish, reptiles and a lux- 
uriant vegetation are the only evidences of life in this vast 
period of time. 

But vegetation fed upon carbon, absorbed it, and in the 
subsequent convulsions of the earth deposited it where we 



[31] 

now find the vast coal-fields, so useful to man. In this vast 
period of the earth's convulsive changes, from the gases to 
the rocks, water, air, soil, vegetation and the first forms of 
animal life, there was no evil, as the medium of sensation had 
just began its formation. There was disorder and progressive 
materia] order, but little sense of pleasure or pain and no 
mind to be elated with thoughts of happiness, to be dejected 
with sorrow, or to shudder at wrong. 

It was not until man appeared upon the scene, with his 
advanced brain, that a being was placed upon the earth con- 
scious of the existence of evil and of perpetual conflict in 
physical and mental nature. He was compelled, from the 
very nature of his organization and its relations with exter- 
nal nature, to taste "of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil." He had been formed the chief agent in pro- 
gressive nature for the expression of mind through matter, 
and was the first to consider an effect or to seek a cause. 
He did not then know that mind as well as matter was sub- 
ordinated to a law of progressive development, and, with his 
inexperience, fancied the world was made on a plan conceiv- 
able to himself and presided over by God and evil spirits. 
The physicist was not there to show him the impelling and 
resisting forces of nature, or that all this conflict arises f rom 
this cause; not there to say that 'all the phenomena of na- 
ture can be traced to the laws of -matter;" and that the full ex- 
planation of good and evil is found in the impelling Force of 
Mind operating through the resistance of matter. 

But in man, who, though ever presently subject to the 
conflict of mind with matter, a being was formed endowed 
with mental capacity to ameliorate, modify and improve ad- 
verse conditions. That is to say, a being appeared upon the 
earth having this Potential Power of the Intellectual Force 
in persistent activity, under all influences, physical and men- 
tal, under the excitation of which he can never find rest — 
never reach a period where, under its influence, Hope will 
not impel him to the better. 

"If we contemplate the course of human development from the 
highest scientific point of view, we shall find that it consists in edu- 
cing, more and more, the characteristic faculties of humanity, in com- 
parison with those of animality, and especially with those which man 
has in coram' n with the whole organic kingdom. It is in this philo- 
sophic sense that the mo&t eminent civilization must be pronounced to be 
fully accordant with nature, since it is, in fact, only a more marked man- 
ifestation of the chief properties of our species, properties which, latent 
at first, can come i^to play only in that advanced state of social life for 
which they are exclusively destined. The whole system of biological 
philosophy indicates the natural progression. We have seen how, in. 



[32] 

the brute kingdom, the superiority of each race is determined by the 
degree of preponderance of the animal life over the organic. In like 
manner we see that out social evolution is only the final term of a pro- 
gression which has continued from the simplest vegetables and most 
insignificant animals up through the higher reptiles to the birds and 
mamifers, and still «>n to the carnivorous animals and monkeys, the 
organic eharacte i-tie< retiring and the animal prevailing, more and 
more, till the intellectual and moral tend toward the ascendancy 
which, can never be fully obtained in the highest state of human per- 
fection we can conceive of. This comparative estimate affords us the 
scientific view of human progression connected (as we see it is) with 
the whole course of animal advancement, of which it is itself the 
highest degree. The analysis of our social progress proves, indeed, 
that while the radical dispositi ms of our nature are necessarily inva- 
riable, the highest of them are in a continuous state of relative devel- 
opment, by which they rise o be preponderant powers of human ex- 
istence, though the inversion of the primitive economy can never be 
absolutely complete." — Comte's Positive Philosophy, pp. 115, 116. 

Discard from the mind all commonly received notions of 
a Creation and accept the evident truth that from the begin- 
ning Formation began, and under the impulse of the InteU 
lectua' Force has gone on through material, physical and 
mental nature, and will go on forever. Accept, also, the 
evident truth, that the Intellectual Force has, so tar, on 
earth, found its best expression in the emotions and intellect 
of man, where it has awakened a recognition of its nature, 
of its purpose, and of the character of the medium through 
which it operates in the development of itself. Where it has 
awakened a recognition of its pervading, advancing and di- 
recting power in the control of matter as a medium for men- 
tal development. 

Such is the order of nature — material, animal, mental — 
all subordinated to the Iutell ctual Force in its progressive 
development. Reflecting upon this order, a recent writer 
(McCosh) observes : 

"■In proportion as the sciences have become subdivided and nar- 
row' d to particular facts, is there a desire waxing stronger among 
minds of laige views to have the light which they have scattered col- 
lected into a focus. As the special sciences advance, the old ques- 
tion, which has been from the beginning, will anew and anew be 
started, 'What is the general meaning of the laws which reign 
throughout the visible world?' " 

" It appears we are approaching the time wlrn an answer may be 
giv^n to the old question. As there is a certain law of progress in the 
development ^f the young animal to the day of its birth, so there 
seems to be some traces of parallelism to this in the order of crea- 
tion — a p ogress in uterine lite, and a parallel march in the womb of 
time from the beginning to the day when man was ushered into 
existence." 

" It is evident," says Agassiz, " that there is a manifest progress in 
the succession of beings on the surface of the earth. This progress 
consists in an increasing similarity to the living fauna, and among the 



[33] 

vertebrata, especially, in their increasing resemblance to man. There 
is nothing like parental descent connecting them. The fishes of the 
Palaeozoic age are in no respect ancestors of the reptiles of the sec- 
ondary age, nor does man descend from the mammals which preceded 
him in the tertiary age. The link by which they are connected is of 
a higher and immaterial nature; and their connection is to be sought 
in the view of the Creator hims* If, whose aim in forming the earth, 
in allowing it to undergo the successive changes which geology has 
pointed out, and in creating successively all the different types of 
animals whieh have passed away was to introduce, man upon its sur- 
face. Man is the end toward which all the animal creation h"s tended 
from the first appearance of the first Palaeozoic fishes." The lan- 
guage of Owen is more explicit. " The recognition of an ideal exem- 
plar in the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a 
being as man must have existed before man appeared ; for the Divine 
Mind which planned the archetype also foreknew all its modifications. 
The archetype idea was manifested in the flesh long prior to the ex- 
istence of those animal species that actually exemplify it. To what 
natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progres- 
sion of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we are as 
yet ignorant. But if, without tierogation of the Divine Power, m e may 
conceive of the existence of such ministers, and personify them by 
the term 'Nature,' we learn from the past history of our globe, she 
has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light 
amid the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the verte- 
brate idea under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed 
in the glorious garb of the human form." 

So far science concurs in the demonstration of the Intel- 
lectual Force But here it passes in greater fullness into 
man, and his ego interposes and checks the inquiry, " Whence 
do I get the capacit} 7 , the intelligence, the power, to under- 
stand a Force — to think or reason about it, as it is displayed 
in progressive order of development in all department's ot 
animated nature?" 

Egotism increases as the animal instincts predominate, and 
decreases as desire and intelligence elevate the mind, until we 
come to regard ourselves as only parts of an Infinite Whole. 
Possessing no more intelligence or mental power than the 
brute, the ego can only comprehend the animal ; but posses- 
sing it in the full measure of man's capacity, it will be readily 
conceived how truly it was said, " I and my Father are one" 
and that the Intellectual Force, contemplating man from the 
beginning as the highest earthly link in the chain of progress, 
is the Force enlightening our own minds, as it is imparted, 
or as the Force pervades our being. 

But as it comes through the dark medium of matter — as 
matter organized into animals has its imperfections — its dis- 
eases, within and without, its appetites and brutal propensi- 
ties, the light is varied, or perverted, or depraved, according 
to the organization and its environment. 



[34] 

Nature, then, has been progressive from the beginning. 
From the molecules to the worlds of space ; from the/orma- 
tion of the rocks, the waters, the air, the earth to life. From 
the vegetable to the animal, and from the animal to man. 
From the beginning we also see the Impulsive Force, from 
the molecules to the vegetable and from the vegetable to 
man, and the Directing Force, beginning in instinct and de- 
veloping into mind. 

The obstacles, or elements, conflicting with this Force, 
are just as apparent. In the grand progression of nature 
Instinct had its opposite in matter, through the medium of 
which arises, in vegetable and animal organization, every- 
thing, physical and moral, we consider evil. 

Let us consider more definitely that principle in organized 
life we name Instinct : 

"With the inferior animals there is a certain squareness of adjust- 
ment, if we may so term it, between each desire and its correspondent 
gratification. The one is evenly met by the o'her, and there is a 
fullness and clefiniteness of enjoyment up to the capacity of enjoy- 
ment. Not so with Man, who, both from the vastness of his propen- 
sities and the vastness of his powers, feels himself chained and be>et 
in a field too narrow for him. He alone labors under the discomfort 
of an incongruity between his circumstances and his powers, and 
unless there be new circumstances awaiting him in a more advanced 
st*te of being, he, the noblest of Nature's products here, would turn 
out to be the greatest of her failures. 

'•* This, then, I take to be the proof of the Soul in Man, not that he 
has a mind — because, as you justty say, inferior animals have that, 
though in a lesser degree — but because he has the capacities to com- 
prehend, as soon as he is capable of any abstract ideas whatsoever, 
the very truths not needed for self-conservaion on earth, and there- 
fore not given to yonder ox and oppo-sum, namely, the nature of 
Deity — Soul — Hereafter. And in the recognition of these truths the 
Human Society that excels the society of beavers, bees and ants, by 
perpetual and progressive improvement on the notions inherited 
from its progenitors, rests its basis. Thus, in fact, this world is ben- 
efited for men by their belief in the next, while the society of brutes 
remains age after age the same. Neither the bee nor the beaver has, 
in all probability, improved since the Deluge." — Chalmers'' Bridgwater 
Treatise. 

Scientists say, Man was manifestly the end of physical or~ 
ganization, contemplated from the beginning. In an order 
of Nature which has progressed from death to life, from 
vegetable Instinct to Mind, what is to be the end of Man? 
We see clearly a mental Force in Nature universally diffused 
through all the atoms of matter and all their combinations; 
directing the formation of the worlds, the material elements 
of the earth, developing into sensation and persistently seek- 
ing higher expression in thought, reason and emotion. An 
Overruling Force of Nature which has been so far imparted 



[35] 

to the earth as to have brought physical order out of disor- 
der and a mental power capable of reviewing its own works 
and of co-operating in the advancement of its own expres- 
sion. This life is not the end of progression! 

Reducing matter to the extreme point of divisibility, we 
approach the Immaterial ; that is, we approach that which 
appears immaterial to us. We get back to the atoms, or, 
the invisible "ether," far as " glass can reach/' and the infi- 
nite beyond we term the immaterial Electricity, heat, light, 
attraction, are material forces, evolved as we conceive from 
the combinations of matter, having well defined offices in 
the economy of nature. Each has its opposite, by which its 
power is limited. 

It 13 said that Intellect, as displayed on earth, is also a ma- 
terial Force — having power and resistance. But observe, 
that its power formed the world — formed all organized life — 
overrules and directs matter and its forces. It is unimpor- 
tant, then, whether we consider mind material or immaterial. 
We trace it back far as we can trace the divisibility of mat- 
ter, and forward, in its diffusion and development, through 
all grades of life to the Emotions and the Intellectual Power 
of Man. 

Organic progression has been the history of living beings 
from the first appearance of life to man. Parallel with the 
advancement of organic structure has been the development 
of Instinct — of the Intellectual Force — grades and diversi- 
ties of development having been exhibited in the vegetable, 
the fish, the bird, the mammalia and in man, according to 
organism and physical environment. In man we discover 
all of the animal instincts of inferior orders, and something 
more. Desire, with the directing Instinct, for food ; the 
sentiment of affection; providence for the future; the love 
of dominion, are all found in lower animal life But, in 
Man, all instinct in sympathy with his advanced organism 
has progressed in development. No new influence was in- 
troduced but that, from the beginning, again enlarged. Mem- 
ory became more tenacious of facts. Judgment, more rigidly 
discriminating, developed into Reason, and from this Reflec- 
tion was educed. 

So far, these instincts might be regarded as necessary to 
the conservation of the advanced organism and their ef- 
fects, as confined to this state of existence, had they not 
given rise to other and higher instincts — having no relation 
to animality — no sympathy with " this body of death." But 
they have awakened in the mind of man consciousness of 

3 



[36] 

Mental Existence and the recognition that this mentality is 
Spirit seeking to discover its Source and desiring and expect- 
ing a life suited to its nature, and that that nature can only 
find its perfect enjoyment in the love of Wisdom, of Moral 
Purity — of the Beautiful and the Good — in infinite progres- 
sion. 

Let the light so shine that no cloud may rest upon the 
mind in the recognition of its own nature, of its Source, of 
its inspirations. 

Emotion is the Great First Cause, imparted to matter ac- 
cording to organization and environment. We know no 
more of this Cause than as it is displayed in Nature ; but 
here we know enough to satisfy the highest reason that this 
Emotion has its Source in the Soul of the Universe ; because 
science recognizes it, in all structural organization, as im- 
pelling and progressive in the increase and diffusion of its 
own development, from chemical attraction to animal desire 
and instinct, and from these to the highest emotions, desires 
and intelligence of man, in whom it acts with increased mo- 
mentum as an emotional, impelling and informing principle. 
It is manifestly not only a procreation of mind but Mind it- 
self, exhibiting in all of its qualities and effects — its desires, 
thought, reason, knowledge, all that we can comprehend as 
constituting a Soul. We know, too, that it has steadily de- 
veloped through all the orders of organic life to man, and 
through him has evolved all that is beautiful in Art, useful 
in Science, truthful in Philosophy and elevating in Religion; 
and that, with increasing momentum, it persistently urges 
mankind to higher intellectual and moral excellence, while it 
prompts his aspirations, while it fires his hope, his faith, and 
enlightens his reason, to anticipate a state of perfect and im- 
mortal happiness in a life to come. 

" Hence our good is a thing honorable and venerable and divine 
and lovely and symmetrical and called, somehow, happiness; but of 
the things that are said by the many to be good, such as health and 
beauty and strength and wealth and what are near to these, there is 
not one altogether a good unless it meets with the use of it arising 
from virtue. And happiness, he conceived, to exist not in human 
things, but in divine and blessed. From whence he said that the 
souls of Philosophers in reality were filled with things great and won- 
derful, and that after the dissolution of the body, they become hearth- 
fellows with the gods, and go round with them, while surveying the 
level plain of truth, since even during the perio 1 of life, they had a 
desire for His knowledge, and honored his pursuit above all; by 
which, after they are purified and revivified, as it were, some eye of 
the soul, that having been previously lost and blinded, is better to be 
saved than ten thousand eyes, becomes able to reach the nature of 
all that is ratioxal. But on the other hand, men without minds 
are likened to those who live under the earth, who have never seen 



[37] 

the brilliant light of the sun, but look upon some dim shadows of the 
substances that are with us and conceive that they are clearly laying 
hold of what exists. For as these, when they meet a return from 
darkness and arrive at a clear light, reasonably condemn what ap- 
peared then and themselves likewise for having been deceived before ; 
so they who pass from the darkness in which they lived to things 
that are truly divine and beautiful, will despise what was previously 
viewed by them with wonder, and they will have a more violent de- 
sire for the contemplation of the last mentioned." — Socrates, from the 
Works of Plato. 

Emotion is the fountain of desire, the Inspiration of Intel- 
lect, and has found, in all ages and climes, in various degrees 
of excellence, its highest medium of expression in the hu- 
man mind. It is a principle as unceasing in activity as light 
or heat or electricity, pervading all matter, and declaring its 
true nature in every well-developed human mind. 

"And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward. Not that 
we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves ; 
but our sufficiency is of God." — Paul. 

" Such harmony is in immortal souls, 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 

It is with us alway and every-where, imparted as physical 
organization can receive it, but still so imparted as to move 
man onward, willing or unwilling. 

" In every experimental science there is a tendency toward perfec- 
tion. In every human being there is a wish to ameliorate his own 
condition. These two principles suffice, even when counteracted by 
great public calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilization 
forward. No ordinary misfortune, no ordinary misgovernment, 
will do so much to make a nation wretched, as the constant progress 
of physical knowledge and the constant effort of every man to better 
his condition, will clo to make a nation prosperous." — Macauley. 

Emotional Instinct is the Impelling and Directing Force 
of Nature — 

" That changed through all and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth as in the ethereal flame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

To man it gave the inspiration of Hope and its thought of 
the Better, reaching out to infinite bliss, illumined with the 
mystic dreams of the Imagination. 

" And thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair, 
What was thy delighted measure ? 
Still it whispered promised pleasure, 
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! 
Still would her touch the strain prolong, 
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 



[38] 

She called on Echo still through all her song: 
And where her sweetest theme she chose, 

A soft responsive voice was heard ;it every close, 

And Hope, enchanted smiled, and wav d her golden hair/'' 

And Hope, pleased with her wonderful creations, however 
varied, strengthened them with Faith, and many confidingly 
rest in their assurance of the Better. But Reflection, not 
satisfied with the pleasing visions of the Imagination, must 
have Knowledge, and Hope and Faith summoned Reason to 
their aid, when the Stone Book was opened, the elements 
analyzed, the laws of matter defined, and Reason brought to 
Hope and Faith the Knowledge, that Impelling and Direct- 
ing all matter, is the Emotional Instinct, the Intellectual 
Force, expandiug from the Monad to Man, in whom it 
awakens to a sense of its Infinite Source, to a sense of its 
"muddy vestment of decay," of its pure and unlimited de- 
sires, of its love of the Wise, the Beautiful and the Good, 
and of its Immortal Destiny. 

Behold! the common pathway from the infinite past to 
the infinite future, for Science, Philosophy, Religion and 
Common Sense; for the learned and the unlearned, brilliantly 
illuminated by Hope, Faith and Knowledge, with a vista of 
expanding Wisdom and Love boundless as the unlimited as- 
pirations of the human Soul, and then — 

" Pray of the Spirit who lighted the flame, 
That passion no more may its purity dim ; 
And, that sullied hut little, or brightly the same, 
You may give back the gem that 3 r ou borrowed from Him.'''' 



THE MORAL POWER OF MAN 



Name it as you may, "The Breath of God;" "The Divine 
Afflatus;" " Attraction and Repulsion;" " The Law of Selec- 
tion;" Emotion, is the original and impelling principle of Na- 
ture. It enters, in degree, into every atom of matter, singly 
and in combination, informing all in accordance with the 
forms assumed under its influence. 

To this Emotion thought will trace all the phenomena of 
Matter, and man will learn why " we are born and laugh," 
in the angelic smile that plays upon the face of infancy ; in 
the rainbow hues of Hope ; in the pleasing visions of the 
imagination ; in the carol of the birds ; in the good and beau- 
tiful in Nature; and in the perpetual increase and diffusion 
of the pervading influence. 



[39] 

Let there be here do departure from evident facts — no 
postulate not as certain as the axioms of science. 

Emotion is the impelling motive of Desire. Desire is the 
inspiration of affection and aversion, of instinct and intellect. 
Trace these through all animated Nature, and it is true of 
all life and in our own consciences. 

In the earliest period of life's history Desire was confined 
to the conservation and multiplication of vegetable species. 
Later it was confined to the conservation and multiplication 
of animal life. 

In this gradual diffusion of the Emotional force through 
organized forms there has been something opposing, resists 
ing, or thwarting its expression. The conflict is every- 
where obvious, in the material elements, in vegetable and 
animal life. 

Let us realize that we have outgrown the mental infancy 
of our race, when, in this resistance, this opposition to the 
good, the imagination fancied evil spirits, or contending 
deities. 

Consider that this resistance, limitation or perversion of 
the Emotional force, results wholly from matter, the medium 
through which it operates, and that its expression is limited 
or varied by vegetable or animal organization and environ- 
ment. 

[Organization and the influences of environment have 
been largely explained in such works as "The Constitution 
of Man/' " The Spirit of Laws/' and by all that has been 
written upon vegetable and animal physiology.] 

In all the vast period of the earth's duration, from the 
primitive rocks to man, with all its varied phenomena, there 
was no expression of a Moral Sense, The supreme law of 
Matter wa« limited to physical nature ; was a physical law, 
recently defined as the " Law of Selection/' contemplating, 
in its influence upon organized life, the "survival of the fit- 
est/' a law that has since reigned, and is still supreme, largely, 
in the conduct of man. 

But in man the Emotional force expanded, enlarged its 
expression. Consider if it imparted to him a new Sense, a 
a higher Sense than his animality. If the instinct in him is 
confined to the animal appetites, passions and propensities; 
if it aspires to nothing above the gratification of animal de- 
sire, then there is no law above his animality, and he is no 
more accountable" for his actions to any power above him 
than the ox or the dog, and can do no wrong save in contra- 
vention of the social order of the country in which he lives. 



[40] 

But if he carries with him the consciousness of being 
moved by u thinking, judging, righteous, benevolent Spirit, 
that loves virtue and abhors vice ; that is perpetually urging 
him in the pursuit of whatever is true, useful and good ; 
suggesting to him that his mission, in the order of Nature, is 
not simply to eat, drink and die like a brute; but to sacrifice 
the animal, if need be, for the true and the good; and that 
lifts him up, when its beam of intelligence is unimpeded, or 
unperverted by animal desire, to a recognition of its sublime 
purity — then he is awakened to a sense of moral law ; then 
he finds a higher Arbiter in the highest utterance oi the 
highest Power of Nature conceivable to man. 

The qualities displayed by this Spirit through man, under 
its physical, environment ; its devotion to the useful, the true 
and the beautiful ; the good it has accomplished and the good 
it contemplates, let us briefly review. 

[To be completed and the work republished, if desired.] 



